Jul. 30--A year ago today, T. Boone Pickens brought his crusade for energy independence to Kansas, including to the offices of The Eagle editorial board. The economy would later take some of the air out of the effort, as would lower oil and gas prices. Many have questioned Pickens' motives. But he's had an undeniable impact, converting many people to the cause of breaking the nation's $700 billion-a-year addiction to foreign energy. The Texan who founded Mesa Petroleum sounded upbeat on the phone last week in discussing the Pickens Plan's progress. He succeeded in injecting energy into the presidential campaign, he said, and was pleased by the tax credits, loan guarantees and other energy measures in the stimulus package, including $32 billion for energy transmission, distribution and production systems.

Now his focus is on H.R. 1835, a bill to get more natural-gas vehicles on the nation's roads, which passed the House in April and he predicts will pass the Senate with bipartisan support. "We need to get something going," Pickens said of his push for natural-gas vehicles to be a "bridge" to future technology.

The House-passed cap-and-trade bill would serve the Pickens Plan's goals for wind and solar power and more transmission lines, he said.

One key component of that bill is its federal renewable energy standard. Gov. Mark Parkinson, also speaking to the editorial board last week, termed the RES "the most important piece of energy legislation to Kansas right now." The state needs more transmission lines, he said, and utilities need a reason to buy wind power, which remains more expensive than coal-fired power. "If we don't get a renewable energy standard passed by Congress this year, there is a real possibility that this whole move toward wind energy is going to come to a halt, at least for a few years," Parkinson said.

Pickens made headlines earlier this month for scrapping plans for a large wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, leaving him with 687 large turbines on order worth $2 billion. He didn't dispute the idea that some of those turbines might end up in Kansas.

Pickens and Parkinson talked last week, the oilman said. "Western Kansas is the perfect place for turbines," Pickens said, though "transmission out of there" isn't perfect yet, and siting of transmission lines requires federal involvement. He said the model for what wind can do for rural communities remains Sweetwater, Texas, which has seen its population grow along with its reputation as the Wind Turbine Capital of Texas.

A year into his multimedia campaign, Pickens has more than 1 million followers and the confidence to say that the American people want his plan. "It's a plan I cannot turn loose of, because it has to be done for this country," he said.

Where Pickens and many people part is on the breadth of his agenda. "Nuclear, drilling, wind, solar, biofuels -- I'm for anything that's America's," he said.

But give the 81-year-old oilman credit for waking up Americans and their leaders to the urgent need to import less oil and make the most of domestic energy sources. When Pickens speaks, people not only listen but also act.

-- For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

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